Sometime in the nineties I was asked to get rid of two truckloads of Amstrad PC's and associated clobber from an Amstrad dealer in South Africa who went bust. After putting together a number of serviceable PCs and laptops and having a profitable garage sale attended by all my old university buddies, I still had a mountain of broken PC hardware on my front lawn. Being ever so smoochy conscious of precious Health and Safety rules about imploding CRTs, I thought it was my duty to pre-implode them before taking them to the local tip. (This was before RoHs and WEEEEE and similar legislative folderol).
First I tried throwing stones front-on at the CRTs. Didn't work. I used bigger stones. Still didn't work. CRTs seem amazingly strong and all those films you see in which an ornament thrown during a domestic tiff shatters the front of the TV are bosh. So I tried bricks. Limited success. Eventually I tried shooting at them from a safe distance with a silenced .22 rifle with teloscopic sight. Some success, but limited due to richochets. What I eventually discovered is that a CRT has a vulnerable underbelly and that if you attack them from the rear or the neck they implode nicely.
I left a few intact so I could take them to the tip and watch them implode as they are squashed by a huge hydraulic press.
This is why PCs hate me.
First I tried throwing stones front-on at the CRTs. Didn't work. I used bigger stones. Still didn't work. CRTs seem amazingly strong and all those films you see in which an ornament thrown during a domestic tiff shatters the front of the TV are bosh. So I tried bricks. Limited success. Eventually I tried shooting at them from a safe distance with a silenced .22 rifle with teloscopic sight. Some success, but limited due to richochets. What I eventually discovered is that a CRT has a vulnerable underbelly and that if you attack them from the rear or the neck they implode nicely.
I left a few intact so I could take them to the tip and watch them implode as they are squashed by a huge hydraulic press.
This is why PCs hate me.
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Well, four years after my comment on decaf, I finally found a piece of gear which needed destroying: a Belkin laptop cooler. You see, the thing will blow air across the bottom of a laptop, all right, for two or three months until the fan starts making a gawdawful racket. I took it apart, tightened everything up, and it was good for another couple of weeks before the fan started jamming again. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the last time when it ground to a halt ten minutes after I put it back together.
Forget tools: I smashed this hunk of junk repeatedly against the edge of the desk until plastic flew around the room. And it felt good.
Later I found Belkin coolers were known to have this problem, mostly uncorrected in the years they were on the market. It turns out Belkin is to computer gear as cheeselike substances are to actual food: vaguely like the real thing, but with no value to purpose.
Forget tools: I smashed this hunk of junk repeatedly against the edge of the desk until plastic flew around the room. And it felt good.
Later I found Belkin coolers were known to have this problem, mostly uncorrected in the years they were on the market. It turns out Belkin is to computer gear as cheeselike substances are to actual food: vaguely like the real thing, but with no value to purpose.
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